At just 19 years of age, this Brockton man managed an emergency shelter for 950 evacuees in North Miami during Hurricane Irma.

Marc Larocque Enterprise Staff Writer @Enterprise_Marc

BROCKTON – Shipped in from Brockton, fresh-faced and 19 years old, he was responsible for managing an emergency shelter in Florida that protected 950 evacuees during Hurricane Irma.

“Managing the shelter was stressful, but I couldn't have done it without my team,” said Andrew Enos, sharing the credit with four other Red Cross volunteers. “We were working on an hour and a half to two hours of sleep everyday. I did what I had to do to help the clients out here to make them safe. I would do it again in a heart beat.”

Enos, who graduated in 2016 from Southeastern Regional Vocational Technical High School, not only managed a shelter during Hurricane Irma for the past week. The Brockton teenager, who lives on the East Side, also volunteered with the American Red Cross for about 10 days at emergency shelters in Texas as part of the relief efforts during Hurricane Harvey.

The shelter that Enos managed in Florida was established at North Miami High School on Thursday morning last week, when hundreds of families filed in before the storm hit on Saturday. Despite getting little sleep on his cot, eating only military-style ready-to-eat meals, and a lack of showers and power, Enos said he was happy to manage the shelter, which closed on Monday after its remaining occupants were moved to a building at the Miami Fairgrounds.

“It's extremely rewarding to be out here,” said Enos, speaking to The Enterprise by phone from Miami on Tuesday afternoon. “It's completely different being out here. I didn't have contact with my family after we lost power and cell phone service. Yesterday, I finally contacted my mom after two days. ... My mom was very relieved to hear me. I let everyone know I was safe and alive.”

Enos said he got to see some of Hurricane Irma's destruction first-hand when he traveled from the high school to the fairgrounds, getting blocked by downed trees and other obstacles.

“We got trapped,” Enos said. “There were no street lights. We took a side street and got stuck.”

In Texas, where Enos volunteered at shelters in Yorktown and Corpus Christi, the destruction seemed even worse from Hurricane Harvey.

“Homes were completely destroyed,” Enos said. “Mobile homes thrown a half mile from where they used to be. Gas stations were upside down, and tanks were a mile away. There was a marina storage area (in Rockport, Texas) where the boats go, where there was piles of boats on top of each other.”

Enos said that while Hurricane Irma raged outside in Miami, he and his staff tried to entertain the children, playing and coloring with them.

“They don't understand why everyone is stressed out,” Enos said about the children. “We would color pictures with them. It's one less thing the parents have to worry about. ... When I was in Texas, a girl colored a picture of Superman and gave it to me.”

Enos said he began volunteering with the American Red Cross last November, responding to house fires back home in Massachusetts. Enos later became an employee of the organization’s blood donation services, but he continues to volunteer. Enos said his first volunteer natural disaster response with the American Red Cross was in Chicago during flooding in late July.

“I like helping people, to be completely honest with you,” Enos said. “I do a lot of volunteering to give back to the communities. That's just how I am, I guess.”